Title:
Autor:
Review:
Iconografia - Devozione - Collezionismo di Immaginette Sacre
Si sana cupis lumina
vei puritatis gratiam
Siracusanam Lùciam
preca lauda et invoca.Rit.:
Te precor Sancta Lùcia
ut locus custodias
ab omni morbo eripias
etfato pellas omnia.Mundana sprevit gaudia
tyranni vincit impetus
immota fit divinitus
cum ducitur ad turpia.Rit.
In vita exorans gratiam
audivit haec a superis
praestare quod tu poteris
a nobis quare postulas.Rit.
Exultet ergo Italia
sicania canat insula
quot gratias quot miracula
a Sancta accepit Lucia.Rit.
The verses here quoted are the strofes of a responsory of the ritual of the
outstanding Basilica Cathedral of Gallipoli that sinqs, in the form of a short
history, about the virtues of Saint Lucy, a Siracusan virgin and martyr, and
impetrates protection.
The abundant and unusual hagiographic literature of recent years - it seems to me - has worried about recalling the attention on the scarce reliability of the many passiones contained in the Legenda aurea by Jacopo da Varagine in other sources, revolutionizing, contradicting and, and even more so, throwing a certain disorder - is it too much? - among the groups of devouts and the many lovers of hagiography.
In the light of the post-counciliar trends in "saintology" one of the saints that has seen her own patronage contested, though not hit by an ostracism for the lack of historicity, but for the historical scarcity of an analogical retaliation in the martyrdom, is actually Saint Lucy. Her martyrdom by the eyes is not historically proven, nor, even Iess, are all the astonishing divine intermissions thinkable that take piace between the conviotion for the refused abjuration and the capitai execution by cutting the throat - historically proven? - according to some examples of masterly iconography (see Carlo Dolci - Florence).
So is Saint Lucy's patronage an abuso perpetrated in the centuries? And if so, there might be among the unknowing victims of this abuse the "sesto tra cotanto senno", that also had serious sight problems and, once answered by God, immonatized his gratitude in the divine poern (Par XXXII, 137). And what would happen to the thousands and thousands of small golden, silver, or waxen "masks" that, as ex voto, cover whole walls of the Lucian sanctuaries (Siracusa, Erchie- Br, Scorrano - Le)?
Carefully reflecting, though, I do not see that anything has changed in the relationship
between the religious devotion and the special patronage of the illnesses of the sight
towards Saint Lucy, at least nothing that does not come within the normal parameters
of the reorganization of the capacity of the popular devotion in the sacred-magical
sphere as an effect of the changed cultural forms of contemporary society.
I think that the Siracusan Saint will continue to presente her protective "title" of the sight if no other reason than the fact that her nomen looks like, in natural terms, to the concept of light, of eyes, of sight. And furthermore, the cultural sedimentations realized in a wonderfully spontaneous way throughout the centuries can never be "cancelled" by the traditions of the populations, from Italy to the Scandinavian countries, to
the Amencas, to Australia, Catholics and Protestants, through the effect of that incontrollable koinè‚ (propagation - imitation - emulation) of a phenomenum that the human sensibility knows how to manipulate to the most hidden corners.
The feast of Saint Lucy - December 13 - is the prelude to the Feast of the Light - December 25 ("The people who walked in the darkness saw a Great Light...") - and the period that separates these two festivities is twelve days long; "twelve", a highly symbolic number, with biblica feeling. The days that separate Christmas from the Epiphany are also twelve - January 6 - yet another feast of the Light, of the Magi's shining star, of the Light that shows itself to the magi-men ot all times.
lt must also be added that some proverbs referto the feast of Saint Lucy that come
from the naturalistic and astronomical culture of the Salentine agricultural
civilization:
te Santa Lucia lu cirere alta via (chickpeas are planted on Saint Lucy's Day);
te Santa Lucia 'ncurtisce la notte e itunghisce la tia quantu lupete tela 'mpolla mia (on Saint Lucy's Day the night becomes shorter and the day becomes longer the amount of the foot of my ampulla);
te Santa Lucia a Natale tutici giurni 'ndave pe 'ifare pane e 'ncofanare (from Saint Lucy's Day to Christmas there are twelve days to make bread and to do the laundry).
This Salento is a crossroads of cultures, as much yesterday as it is today: "tia" from the Spanish dia, "'ndave" from the French il y a.